Flora Unveiled

354 i Flora Unveiled

in the audience, chafing at the strictures imposed by their elders, would respond enthusias-
tically to all things radical, especially concerning the taboo subject of sex.
Vaillant’s portrait by the Dutch engraver Jacobus Houbraken shows a handsome face
framed by the rich curls of a wig cascading over his shoulders. Now, attired in academic
robes, he stares out with large, intelligent eyes and lips that seem to hover between a
smile and a smirk. Perhaps it is the frank stare of a former surgeon whose knowledge of
the human body is far more intimate than that of physician- professors. We imagine him
standing behind the podium of the lecture hall clad in full academic regalia, shuffling
through the pages of his lecture notes. At the appropriate moment, he glances up with
a sly smile, signaling his readiness to begin. Only after the conversations have entirely
ceased and all eyes are fixed expectantly upon him does he launch energetically into his
lecture. “Gentleman,” he begins, ignoring the fact that many elegant ladies are also in
attendance,

Since among all the parts that characterize plants the ones we call flowers are, with-

out argument, the most essential, it seems appropriate to discuss them with you at

the outset, even more so because botanists in general have provided us with rather

confused ideas about them. Perhaps the language I am going to use for this purpose

will seem a little novel for botany, but since it will be filled with terminology that

is perfectly proper for the use of the parts that I intend to expose, I believe that it

will be more comprehensible than the old fashioned terminology, which—being

crammed with incorrect and ambiguous words better suited for confusing the sub-

ject than for shedding light on it—leads into error those whose imaginations are

still obscured, and who have no good notion of the true functions of the majority

of these structures.^11

As most in the hall would have understood, Vaillant was referring to the “old- fashioned
terminology” of his deceased mentor, Tournefort, whom he believed had made a hash of
plant classification by overemphasizing the corolla and ignoring the most important parts
of the flower: the sexual organs. The flower was by definition the structure that contained
the sexual organs. The corolla’s entire purpose, Vaillant asserted, was to cover and protect
these sexual organs:

From my definition of the true flower, one can readily understand that it should be

in full bloom, because, when still a bud, the corolla not only completely surrounds

the reproductive organs, but also conceals them so perfectly that one can consider

the bud as a nuptial bed, since it is usually only after they have consummated their

marriage that they are permitted to show themselves; or if the bud happens to

open slightly before they are through, it opens completely only after they have left

each other.

Here we find the first use of the term, later made famous by Linnaeus, of the closed flower
bud as a curtained “nuptial bed,” which conceals the bride and groom as they consummate
their marriage.^12 Leaving nothing to the imagination, Vaillant describes a steamy encounter
between stamen and pistil worthy of a D. H. Lawrence: